


bullets at my heels (the devil's got a gun)

by Mx_Carter



Category: Scooby Doo - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, F/M, Fred is the token straight guy, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Ruining Your Childhood, Velma and Shaggy would like it known that they are Not Fucking, cos thats how i roll, everybody has issues, no beastiality i s2g, no ragrets, spn!AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-23
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-02-26 16:28:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2658665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mx_Carter/pseuds/Mx_Carter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Velma wants to save everyone.<br/>Daphne wants revenge.<br/>Shaggy wants to save Scooby.<br/>Scooby wants to save Shaggy.<br/>Fred wants a goddamn drink.</p><p>Or, the one where everyone is a hunter, and everyone needs therapy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Devil's Got A Gun by Whitehorse

She jerks awake, tangled in the scratchy motel blankets and coated in sweat. The small cuts on her face sting with tears. Her scars are throbbing. She's had the same dream for years, but it never gets better.

Velma closes her eyes and sags into the sheets for a second, before her strung-out brain picks up the dim lighting, the smell of coffee and the rustle of pages turning. Heaving herself out of bed takes effort. She stands on wobbly legs and wanders over to the table, letting her body drop gracelessly into a chair.

Shaggy looks up from his book. "Hey, man. You don't look so good."

She rolls her eyes and grabs his coffee, draining as much of it as she can in one go. Her friend huffs and goes back to his book. She glances at the cover and can't hold back a snort. Twilight. She taps the table until he looks up at her, then she points at the offending book. He shrugs, and steals his coffee back.

The motel room door is nudged open, and Scooby trots in before she can draw the knife she'd reached for. He tilts his head at her and whines. It's probably the dim lighting and her whacked-out imagination, but for a second she sees something in his deep brown eyes. Something aching and completely human. Then he settles with a thump over her bare feet, the warm weight of him against her legs like an anchor, pulling her down to this room, to the awful decor and the faint smell of mould and the soft noises of three sets of lungs breathing.

Neither of them speak. After a month sharing rooms like this all over the states, they don't really need words.

It might be an hour before she gets up and settles back in her bed, curling up into a ball on top of the covers. She doesn't have to wait long before he joins her, kicking off his shoes and spooning around her. He's thin and wonderfully warm, with the faintest smell of gunpowder clinging to his clothes.

Claws click on the floor, and then Scooby leaps onto the bed and thuds onto them, crushing her. Shaggy huffs and she grins, breathing in dog and cold night air.

"You stop that," she murmurs. Scooby huffs and shifts himself to the foot of the bed, where he doesn't disturb anyone and keeps their feet warm. When she drifts off to sleep this time, she doesn't dream of anything. It's wonderful.

~~~

Daphne calls them at 6. Shaggy takes the call, mumbling into the receiver. She shifts her feet out from under Scooby and pulls herself out of bed. They barely unpacked, so it's just a matter of scooping up the few things lying around the room and stuffing them into the respective bags. Shaggy ends the call and stumbles into the bathroom, Scooby walking beside him to stop him falling over. Bless him, he really isn't a morning person.

By the time she finally gets the bathroom back, the motel room is clear of their shit, the copy of Twilight has mysteriously vanished, and there is no hot water. She loves Shaggy, really she does, but sometimes he is _such a twat._

Velma stands shivering under the spray, wincing at the various cuts getting soaked, and laments the loss of her house and her perpetually hot shower. Fuck Daphne, seriously. Next time she shows up on Velma's doorstep, she's going to shoot her. Non fatally, of course.

Probably.

Shaggy choses this moment to discover the disappearance of Twilight. She can't help laughing as she shuts off the hot water. Ridiculous man makes it so easy to fuck with him. Really, she's doing him a favour. No-one deserves Twilight, not even people who use up all the hot water.


	2. Chapter 2

Daphne kicks the tires so hard, their beaten up old van rattles. Fred winces. Velma sighs.

It's been a long day, too much has happened, and a lead they've been trailing for a week has turned out to be a dud. They'd managed to kill the revenant that Daphne had been _so sure_ was a demon, but that isn't going to matter to the other woman. Daphne's very single minded like that. It's incredible, the focus she brings to everything she does, the way she lights up like Scooby on the scent of something edible. It's saved their collective asses too many times to count. And if Velma finds it kind of really hot, well. That's between her and herself.

A lot of the time, it's also a royal pain in the ass.

Fred's standing there like a blue-jumpered lemon, watching her helplessly. For all that they've been on-off dating for years, he's turned out to be really shit at handling Daphne when she's like this. Mind you, she hadn't expected anything less. Fred is Fred.

Scooby has wandered away from the four of them to poke around in the bushes. After about a minute he emerges rolling an empty beer bottle along with his nose, pushing it until it hits Velma's boot. Then he sits back and stares at her, head cocked.

Sometimes, Velma wanders how the goddamn dog is the smartest one in this whole gang. Mostly she doesn't question it anymore.

"Good dog," she tells him, scratching behind his ears. "Good, smart dog."

Shaggy raises an eyebrow at her, and she grins. He shrugs and wanders over to the back of the Mystery Machine (seriously, Fred?) getting in before Scooby.

Fred stares at them, and then at her. Velma smiles back.

"Scooby Doo has spoken," she intones. "We're all going to go get shitfaced."

Fred sighs. "Why are we taking advice from the dog?"

Velma pats him on the arm as she passes him, and opens his door. "Because the dog is smarter than us."

Fred gets that look that means he has no idea whats happening but has decided to go with it. With a shrug, he gets in.

Velma walks over to Daphne, who still hasn't moved. She's staring into the tree line, hands fisted. She looks like she wants to punch the world in the face for taking this away from her. Velma can relate.

She doesn't touch her, because neither of them deal well with touch when they're strung out. Instead, she simply stands next to her for a few seconds, breathing in forest and exhaust fumes from the road before speaking.

"Next time."

Daphne looks at her, finally. She's crying a little, but then Daphne has always worn her heart on her sleeve. It's one of the things Velma's always loved about her. "You can't promise me that."

Velma nods. "I can't. But we're both quite smart, and we know a lot of competent people. Statistically speaking, we're going to find something eventually."

Daphne actually smiles at that. "And the boys aren't?"

Velma stares at her for a second, before they both burst out laughing. Daphne's laugh is a bit watery, but it's still lovely to hear it.

Fred honks at them, and they turn back to the van. Daphne looks at her quizzically and Velma smiles back. "I promised them booze."

She gets another laugh for that, and a warm peck on the cheek that absolutely does not make her flush. Then Daphne's climbing in beside Fred, and Velma's climbing in behind Daphne, and Shaggy's complaining that he's hungry, and Fred's starting the van and restarting the baseball vs music argument with Daphne, and Scooby has his head on her lap, and they're driving off to the next town, and they're going to get gloriously, stupidly drunk together, which will fix nothing but somehow make everything seem a bit better.

At least; until the hangovers hit.

Velma has been happier, but not in a good long while.


	3. Chapter 3

 Velma is so done. So very, very done. Someone could walk up to her and stab a fork through her hand right now, and she would not care. That done.

 She's a hunter, dammit. Terror of the night. Unapologetic badass. Trained in at least 20 different firearms and even more weird and obscure forms of weaponry. She can use a broadsword, for fuck's sake. She has taken down actual demons. This shit should not be happening to her.

 Fred shifts his position on the floor of their newly acquired jail cell, and sighs. "I've never been arrested before," he says morosely.

 Of course Fred hasn't been arrested before. He's pretty much a golden retriever in human form. He's living proof that the All-American Dream Boy is actually attainable.

 "I have," she replies.

 Fred sits up straight, and looks at her with a gratifying amount of shock. "Seriously? You?"

 "Why not?"

 Scratching at the back of his neck, he shrugs. "No offence Velma, but I can't really see you as the criminal type."

 She grins at him, one of the sharper smiles she rarely uses. "I had a rebellious adolescence."

 Trapped in a children’s home, wandering through school alone, full of her scars and her fear, a story no-one wanted to believe and a belly heavy with guilt. She'd never been adopted, never made friends - too smart, too sharp, too sad. Her teenage years had been spent curled into herself, hungry for answers to the questions she could never quite shake, not trusting herself not to fuck up, get more people killed.

 Of course all that anger had to go somewhere. And go it had.

 Fred shakes her out of her thoughts. "At least the other two got away. They'll wrap it up. We were almost done anyway."

 Velma pulls her knees up, leans on them. "Yeah, Fred. They'll be just fine."

 Daphne's probably relieved right now. Not having to worry about her puppy of a boyfriend and the friend who clamps down whenever she has the slightest bit of responsibility must be a real weight off her shoulders. Velma is so done with everything that the thought only stings a little.

 Fred sighs again. His face is in shadow, and he looks sadder than she's ever seen him before. "She's probably glad I'm out of the way," he says quietly, almost to himself.

 Velma wishes she was more of an asshole. Because she doesn’t really want to reassure the guy she…well, she’s jealous of him. Of course she is. She’d give anything to be where he is.

 She accepted a long time ago that she was never going to be over her crush on Daphne.

 Still, Velma Dinkley is not an asshole. She is, most of the time, a pretty decent person. Plus, she dares anyone to resist Fred at his most kicked-puppyish.

 So she turns to face him. “She loves you, you know.”

 Fred looks up at her and, wow, she though he had a better self-esteem than that. He looks so shocked. “You really think?”

 God, Velma really does not want to do this. “Of course she does. If she didn’t want you around, she would have said by now.”

 Her cellmate sighs. “Yeah, but there’s a world between tolerating me and loving me.”

 “Trust me, okay? She loves you.”

 Fred doesn’t look entirely convinced, but at least he’s stopped moping. Her work is done.

 Velma curls her knees into her chest, and meditates on how done she is with everything ever until she sees an opportunity to pick the cell’s lock.

 It’s surprisingly easy but, then again, small-town jails. They open a window, and Fred boosts her up and climbs after her. The two of them sprint away, hand in hand, laughing.

 She’s still not sure if she knows what Daphne sees in the guy, but Fred’s alright. Velma’s not too bitter to admit that.


End file.
